And what will his win or loss do to my Google ranking? WBRC today:

Monday may have been a holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., but it did not stop candidates who are running in the special runoff election for mayor of Birmingham.

William Bell and Patrick Cooper marched near the head of the MLK parade in downtown Birmingham Monday. Both men told FOX6 News they were feeling tired but confident as the campaign wound down.

Polls are open 7-7 Tuesday, and it sounds like the News will Cover It Live. A story has a quote on how tomorrow may go, from a pollster: "Generally I expect more people to vote than did in the first go-around, but the nature of this could change that. This one's gotten so dirty. That really negative campaigning seems to drive down turnout."

Elsewhere, sorting through the race, Birmingham Weekly makes me realize Cooper and I have some else in common. Gesticulation!

Cooper describes himself as a fresh face for Birmingham, and voters might see that face were they not distracted by Cooper's nervous gesticulation. Cooper doesn't speak with his hands; he uses them to assault the air in front of him with two-handed karate chops. Sometimes, his arms and shoulders join the attack, until he becomes a bad impersonation of Regis Philbin. When Cooper finishes his point, he picks a person from the audience to flash a Bush-like smile. It conveys the pride of someone who slogged through every rehearsed line without tripping, not once.

But at least Cooper smiles. On stage, Bell is confident almost to a fault. He is calm to the point of seeming shrewd. He wears the scowl of someone who just tasted a green persimmon. When he goes on the rhetorical attack, he has the countenance of a man who might poison his neighbor's dog.

I knocked over a glass of wine at a restaurant just last week.

Headline on the piece? "The evil of two lessers." The News yesterday endorsed Cooper but with reservations about a lack of experience.

This blog, as you know, does not endorse political candidates, parties or philosophies, even when they share my name. But, Birmingham residents, I ask you to vote tomorrow to restore my Google ranking.

Whether you vote against Patrick Cooper and send him into obscurity or vote for Patrick Cooper and send him into the digital obscurity of municipal Web pages, do what you feel is right. Your city ballot, in a way, is your Google ballot. Vote for me, the other Patrick Cooper.

I'm still not the Patrick Cooper running for mayor, but I continue to get mail from voters. Their letters keep me interested. As I've told them in replies, I'm now more curious about a race in a state I've never seen than I expected possible. (The voters then usually invite me to visit.)

What's new? The race is turning ugly. Cooper missed a NAACP debate, and fingers pointed all over. Meanwhile, race-baiting and gay-baiting fliers surfaced outside the debate hall and elsewhere. On the more substantial side of the contest, there's still policy talk going on.

Bell wants more fiscal stability before tackling pressing issues such as community revitalization, crime and improved mass transit, but he sees the domed stadium as part of the city's future.

Cooper sees pre-kindergarten pro grams and mass transit as priorities to help combat the city's crime and poverty, and believes the city should pursue its "needs" before its "wants."

Birmingham folks who see this post this week, who has your vote?

In recent weeks, I've been invited to a nice Birmingham family's holiday party and asked to speak to Birmingham minority contractors. The Web traffic from the greater Birmingham area has continued unabated. Yet, critically, I remain the Patrick Cooper who's not the Birmingham politico.

And that Patrick Cooper isn't mayor yet either. As I watched the Al.com election night Cover It Live session, that Cooper racked up the most votes but not enough to avoid a run-off. Cooper now faces William Bell in a January 19 vote. The latest in the race? A recently dismissed city hall power is calling himself "one of the most ferocious anti-campaign operatives in America" and gunning for Cooper. (Weird photo, yes?)

In other news, remember the Patrick Cooper rap? Cooper says he's flattered but doesn't like the language. His opponent is unconvinced.

For more coverage, please enjoy this video, which is in Spanish but, whatever your language, offers the most concise rundown I've seen:

A kind Birmingham family mistakenly invited me to their Christmas party last week, and I went searching for how they could contact the Patrick Cooper they wanted. I found his site but also found an amazing video. Embedding does not constitute an endorsement. (Note: Profanity.)

And here I thought Patrick Cooper the mayoral candidate was my rival Google. Just as Andre Natta, publisher of Birmingham's The Terminal, gives me a great reason to pull for candidate Patrick Cooper — "even if he wins, your site will end up retaking it's number 1 spot sooner rather than later since all of his inquiries would end up at our city's website anyway" — we get a November Patrick Cooper surprise.

Put on your Drudge red lights. Patrick Cooper the jazz musician has grabbed half of our shared name's PageRank. Search for our name without quotes and he's #1. As of this evening, search for our name with quotes and I'm #1. It's like Patrick Cooper me and Patrick Cooper the mayoral candidate split the vote, and the Patrick Cooper of jazz strolled right by. He hasn't updated his site since 2007ish. Not good.

Bad news. The Web rumblings became real yesterday when one-time Birmingham mayoral candidate Patrick Cooper threw his hat back in the ring. Thanks a lot, now-convicted ex-mayor Larry Langford. Your love of white-collar crime is going to cost me my Google rank again. But this fight has just begun, and a man named Tom, who appears to know his Birmingham, found me online yesterday and noted the bright side.

Maybe. Folks are searching the Web for Patrick Cooper again, my site reports claim, and that only means one thing: trouble in Alabama. And trouble in Alabama only means one thing: trouble for me. A federal jury has convicted Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford of all 60 conspiracy, bribery, fraud, and money laundering counts he faced. The conviction automatically removed Langford from office and installed an interim.

But there now appear to be searchers and commenters looking for Langford's mayoral runoff opponent and this Patrick Cooper's Google PageRank-nemesis "Patrick Cooper" to return to politics. Cooper has been active this fall in getting out the vote. Let's keep it that way.

Patrick Cooper's anagram name is CRACKPOT OR PIE.

Patrick Kent Cooper's anagram name is CRANKIER, TOP POCKET.

Hmm. Going viral now, learn your anagram name here.

Ending a long-running saga: The website for 2007 Birmingham mayoral candidate Patrick Cooper has left the Internet. This blog has regained its place atop Google, Yahoo and MSN searches for "Patrick Cooper."

Yes, this blog has previously reported victory here only to find the win temporary — when I wrote about a whole bunch of Patrick Coopers, I think. But now the ranking has appeared to hold, and the competition has left the Web. As much as I liked hearing from confused Birmingham voters (and amused relatives of the candidate and local bloggers), I'm glad it's over. Jazz musician Patrick Cooper, don't try anything funny.

As I'm sure you've seen elsewhere, the 2008 baby name data is out. Localizing the story as any good journalist must do (ElvisNews.com: "Don't get all shook up, but Elvis fell from 673 in 2007 to 713 in 2008"), I have to inform you "Patrick" has fallen again. The name has dropped from #116 in 2007 to a rough #127 in 2008, its worst mark since 1928. Meanwhile, "Cooper" has risen again to a record, from #96 in 2007 to #92 in 2008. Once again, Cooper Patrick is the new Patrick Cooper.

One of my favorite visualization tools, here's NameVoyager's chart of Patrick usage per million babies. Dive in and do your own lookups.